[Andy Baker]

Wow - what a thread! This is an excellent discussion. It is impressive to see the passion and conviction of opinions, along with the thoughtfulness of making clear points while also being open to others' opinions.

This topic resonates well with me, as I have seriously considered starting an all-girls FRC team in the Kokomo area during the past year. We have discussed this with many people, receiving many opinions from many friends, including influential women in FIRST. To my amazement, we received opinions from women which were both supportive AND non-supportive to an all-girls team.

Before I describe who was most influential to me during this process, I will give you some background:

My wife and I have three daughters, and the oldest will be a freshman next year at a high school which does not have an FRC team. Graciously, the TechnoKats (45) have invited her to be a member of the team. At the same time, we have also met with the Superintendent and Principal of her school (Northwestern High School in Indiana), and they have agreed to start a new FRC team. As a family, we have decided that the best thing for us to do is start this new team at NHS. I will still have close ties to team 45, but next year my focus will be as a mentor on this Rookie FRC team. This team will be a girls and boys team, with much emphasis on making sure that the team's culture allows for girls to have equal chances that guys have within the team.

So, back to the idea of starting an all-girls team: as I mentioned, we talked to many women in FIRST about this. However, there was one person who influenced me the most in making sure that girls should be welcomed and supported equally on a mixed gender team instead of purposely segregated from the boys. This person is one of the "rock stars" in FIRST: Kate Pilotte. Kate grew up with a house full of boys, and was successful as an engineering graduate of WPI. She even got to yell at guys at WPI as a coxswain (I think that's the term) on the rowing team. Now, she is in charge of the FRC Kit of Parts as a FIRST engineer. She serves as an FTA for many events, and has seen many all-girl teams in FIRST. If you can get her to talk about this, she definitely has some opinions. Her point is that girls should be supported and integrated with boys so that they can learn to work together, productively, at an early age.

Kate's opinion further opened my eyes to this issue, and I am pledging to continue to support a culture within FIRST that supports female involvement.

Thank you, Kate.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker